NIC Diversity Events presents the true story of Colombian coffee

|photo1|Colombian coffee farmer and leader of the farmer-led sustainable agriculture movement Freddy Urbano will present at North Idaho College about the real story behind what’s in people’s morning cup of coffee.

Urbano will speak about Plan Colombia, a U.S. government initiative intended to fight the cultivation of cocaine-producing coca, the impact of fumigation and free trade on small farmers in Colombia, organic and fair trade coffee production and the United State-Colombia Free Trade Agreement at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 26 in the Blue Creek/Echo Bay Room upstairs in NIC’s Edminster Student Union Building.

Urbano works for COSURCA in Colombia, a cooperative organization of peasant, indigenous and Afro-Colombian groups in the southern Cauca province. Over the past five years, COSURCA has received funding from USAID and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime for organic coffee production and coca eradication efforts. However, two rounds of aerial fumigations in Cauca in 2005 caused 57 COSURCA families to lose their organic crop certification and suffer from the destruction of their food crops, contamination of water supplies and deforestation.

Kathy Nygard, a member of Witness for Peace’s International Team in Colombia in March 2006, will translate. Nygard has extensive experience living and working in Latin America.

The event is sponsored by the NIC Diversity Events Committee, NIC Students for Progressive Change and Witness for Peace Northwest.